For Someone Who Said She Wouldn't Run for President, Oprah Sounds an Awful Lot Like Someone Who Might Run for President

The 2018 Golden Globes belonged to Cecil B. DeMille award laureate and living legend Oprah Winfrey, who delivered a speech that, at times, seemed specifically crafted to get everyone in America to pull out their phones and Google "OPRAH 2020" before her standing ovation had even concluded. "A new day is on the horizon," she said, addressing the girls at home watching her become the first black woman to receive the award. "And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say 'Me, too' again."

As recently as this summer, Winfrey publicly insisted that she would never run for any public office, let alone President of the United States. That said, it's been less than a year since voters told Public Policy Polling that they preferred Oprah to Donald Trump in 2020 by a seven-point margin. As Golden Globes attendees gushed about her speech after the show wrapped, CNN reported that Winfrey was "actively considering" a bid for the Oval Office. "It's up to the people," her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, told a Los Angeles Times reporter in an apparent effort to break the Internet. "She would absolutely do it."

Look, Winfrey has a long history of meaningful political activism, and is the rare public figure who enjoys something resembling universal acclaim. And if the previous two years have demonstrated anything, it is that a career in public service is not a prerequisite for political success, and that the loftiest aspirations of billionaire celebrities are not as silly as anyone—even the candidates themselves—might think. Oprah could win, and for a Democratic Party that still can't believe it lost the last time around, that counts for a lot. She could be great! If she ends up being the nominee, I'd vote for her!

Until recently, though, serious presidential candidates boasted lengthy political résumés because we understood that people who know the political process tend to perform better in politics. The same could be said for, say, brain surgeons. Or actuaries. But America's first grand experiment with electing a political neophyte to the highest office in the land isn't going super well right now. The reasonable presumption that Winfrey, thanks to her decidedly-more-presidential disposition, and an absence of any lengthy history of casual racism, and the fact that she is not in the midst of a noticeable and alarming cognitive decline, would make for a better commander-in-chief than Trump doesn't change the fact that she would face a steep learning curve of her own in office.

You can see, then, how it is a little troubling that the reflexive response to the ascension of a television personality to the White House is trying to recruit a bigger, better, more popular star who can dethrone him. (This is especially true when the Chosen One is Winfrey, since her political party has a history of relying heavily on support from African-American women while investing God knows how much time and money trying to coax those elusive white working-class voters into the Democratic column.) The near-instantaneous "Winfrey 2020" buzz generated by this one short awards show speech is indicative of yet another way in which our celebrity president has broken politics in this country: by making it seem, at times, as if selecting an experienced public servant with a working knowledge of the way government functions is no longer a viable strategy for winning elections.

The idea of President Winfrey isn't an absurd one, though. And the spectacle of President-elect Winfrey taking the stage on November 3, 2020 to deliver a euphoric victory speech while waiting patiently for Donald Trump's unhinged concession tweet is not a bad image to think about.

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